RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) -Your phone isn't just a phone anymore, it's also a tracking device. Police are dialing up the cell phone companies more and more, often asking for specific information - like a user's whereabouts or even a call log. Under current law, they do not need a search warrant.

The top cell phone companies revealed they'd responded to 1.3 million law enforcement demands for subscribers information. The On Your Side Investigators uncovered how Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico County all use the tactic.

Republican delegate Bob Marshall says it's got to stop.

"Just keep stepping around this, like some people want to do too often, is to jeopardize your life and your liberty," said Marshall during a phone interview.

Marshall has introduced a bill that would require cell phones to be considered tracking devices. Police would need a warrant from a judge before phone companies hand over location data.

State Del. Bob Marshall (R-13th) filed a complaint in Fairfax County Circuit Court Thursday charging that the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) failed to adhere to state law when it approved for funding a list of more than 30 transit projects last month.
At the crux of the case, Marshall said, is a Virginia statute that requires the authority to demonstrate how the projects will relieve congestion. With many of the recently-greenlit initiatives, the delegate said, that hasn't been shown.

According to the section of Virginia Code noted in Marshall's suit, the authority “shall give priority to selecting projects that are expected to provide the greatest congestion reduction relative to the cost of the project and shall document this information for each project selected.”

The question, it seems, is whether “shall give priority to” is a mandate.

In a prepared statement, Marshall said the NVTA “has failed to provide adequate and convincing documentation."

"Their bond quality I am reliably advised will be low-grade, high-interest,” Marshall said. “Furthermore, projects that are seriously needed have been ignored while projects that will do little to help relieve major traffic congestion will be funded.”

A great article in Forbes in support of Delegate Marshall's HJ590 to study the possibility of a return to the gold standard in monetary policy. The bill has passed the House Rules Committee and should be heard today (Feb 4, 2012) on the House floor.
"Last week, the Virginia House of Delegates Rules Committee passed, by an 11 – 1 bipartisan majority, a bill to establish “a joint subcommittee to study the feasibility of a United States monetary unit based on a metallic standard, in keeping with the constitutional precepts and our nation’s founding principles….” Such a study could prove to be a very big deal indeed."

RICHMOND, Feb. 27 – Delegate Bob Marshall urged the Virginia State Senate tonight to pass his bill to block Virginia’s political subdivisions, agencies, employees and National Guard personnel from assisting federal authorities or armed forces in “unlawful detention of United States citizens.”
“Our liberties literally hang in the balance,” Marshall (R., Manassas) said.

Earlier today, a move by Senate Democrats to send the bill back to that body’s Courts of Justice Committee was rejected by a tie roll call vote, 20-20, after which Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, as the Senate’s presiding officer, also cast a “nay” vote.

The bill, HB 1160, is scheduled for a vote during the Senate’s session tomorrow (Feb. 28). The Courts of Justice Committee sent the bill to the Senate floor on Wednesday (Feb. 22) by an 8-3 vote with three members abstaining. The legislation was passed by the Virginia House of Delegates on Feb. 4 by an overwhelming 94-4 roll call vote.

The Legislative Information Service describes HB 1160 as: “Unlawful detention of United States citizens. Prevents any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the conduct of the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a United States citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, Constitution of Virginia, or anyVirginia law or regulation.”

At issue is an obscure Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act ostensibly authorizing a United States president to use the nation’s armed forces to detain American citizens that the president believes are or have been substantial supporters of al Qaeda, the Taliban or associated groups and to hold them indefinitely, to prosecute them before a military commission, or to transfer them to a foreign country.

President Obama signed the bill into law on Dec. 31. Since then, organizations and individuals from across the political spectrum and from coast to coast have raised concerns about the law.

In that regard, Marshall noted that support of his HB 1160 is broadly diverse, ranging from Gun Owners of America and to the American Civil Liberties Union.

“There are moments in our nation’s history when our liberties literally hang in the balance,” Marshall said. “This is one of those moments. I urge the Senate to join the overwhelming vote in the House of Delegates and pass this bill – to lead the way for sovereign states to refuse to cooperate when the federal government seeks to take away the civil liberties of our citizens.”

Perhaps the highest profile of those is Marshall's, which would require that mortgage transfers be recorded in local land records and that investors and lenders file documents there before foreclosing.

The following is an excerpt from a recent news article about one of Delegate Bob Marshall's bills for the 2011 General Assembly Session:
Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall -- the same lawmaker who wants to ban gays and lesbians in the Virginia National Guard, despite the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell -- has a new idea. Virginia should mint its own coins.

Marshall (R-13th District), a 20-year veteran, plans to introduce legislation during the Jan. 12 session of the General Assembly that would call for the Commonwealth to study minting its own coins in order to compete with what he calls “the monopoly of the Federal Reserve System,” reports InsideNova.com.

“We can’t mint money, but we can mint gold and silver coins,” Marshall told InsideNova.com Wednesday night. “It sounds like a small difference, but it is a difference legally. If you look closely on a [dollar] bill, it doesn’t say that it’s money. It says it is legal tender ‘for all debts, public and private.’”

Del. Bob Marshall (R-Prince William) is sponsoring a bill that would allow public employees to be terminated or otherwise disciplined if they knowingly violate public information laws.
Behind the proposed legislation, which he has filed for consideration when the General Assembly convenes next month, is the now hotly contested events surrounding the tenure of climate researcher Michael Mann at the University of Virginia.

Mann left the university in 2005 and is now a professor at Penn State University.

RICHMOND -- Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has issued several controversial legal opinions in the past few months, concluding, for instance, that police could check the immigration status of those stopped by law-enforcement officers, that the state could impose stricter oversight of clinics that perform abortions and that local governments could allow religious holiday displays on public property.

Virginia's top prosecutor, after issuing a legal opinion that seemed to align his state with Arizona in the battle over local immigration enforcement, told Fox News on Monday that the two states' policies aren't a perfect match.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion Friday saying state law enforcement officers are allowed to check the immigration status of anyone "stopped or arrested."

"It is my opinion that Virginia law enforcement officers, including conservation officers may, like Arizona police officers, inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested," he wrote.

But in an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, Cuccinelli underscored that in Virginia pursuing immigration offenses is up to the officers -- not required, as it is under Arizona's controversial immigration law.

"We are not mandating to our law enforcement that they make these inquiries on every stop," Cuccinelli said, noting that Arizona's law requires officers to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for other reasons when there is reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally....

...He wrote the opinion in response to a question from state Delegate Bob Marshall, who represents Prince William County.

Marshall's county implemented a law that requires police to check the immigration status of everyone they arrest -- but not everyone they come in legal contact with.

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."